novelraw Arc 4 - Ghaṭotkacha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 6 - Battles in the Night
Arc 4 - Ghaṭotkacha-Vadha Parva - Chapter 6 - Battles in the Night
Sañjaya said:
In that terrible battle of the night, when heaven and earth were wrapped in smoke and flame, the son of Pṛṣata, Dṛṣṭadyumna, advanced toward Droṇa. His bow gleamed like a serpent in sunlight, the string drawn to his ear again and again, each arrow singing vengeance. Behind him surged the Pāñcālas and the sons of Pāṇḍu, their voices raised like thunder—the cry of men sworn to end their teacher’s life.
Droṇa, the aged lion among warriors, stood unmoved upon his golden car. Around him, Duryodhana and his brothers formed a ring of iron, guarding him with their lives. Then the two oceans of men met—Pāṇḍava and Kaurava hosts—heaving, roaring, each lashed by the tempest of battle, each filled with creatures struggling for air and light.
Dṛṣṭadyumna pierced Droṇa in the chest with five keen arrows and uttered a cry that shook the ranks. Droṇa, unruffled, returned the stroke with five and twenty shafts and cut off the bright bow of his foe. The Panchāla prince, stung and bleeding, threw away his shattered bow and seized another, his eyes burning red with wrath.
The prince drew to his ear a mighty shaft—
forged for vengeance, kissed by flame,
and aimed at the heart of Droṇa.
It shone across the field like the rising sun,
and even the gods beheld it, saying,
“Prosperity to Droṇa!”
But Karṇa, with hands that moved faster than thought, shot a storm of arrows that clove it into a dozen splinters. The fragments fell to earth, harmless as snakes whose fangs were gone. Then Karṇa, Droṇa, Aśvatthāman, Śalya, Duḥśāsana, Duryodhana, and Śakuni—seven mighty warriors together—rained arrows upon the Panchāla prince like a storm upon a single tree. Dṛṣṭadyumna, pierced and bleeding, answered each with three shafts apiece, his face bright with the fire of courage.
He struck Droṇa, Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, and Duryodhana all at once, his bow vibrating like a god’s thunder-string. The air was filled with the hiss of arrows; each blow answered by another, each hero roaring his own defiance.
Then Drumasena, son of Duryodhana, came forward, his bow already drawn, his lips curved in pride. He struck the Panchāla prince with a flight of arrows, crying aloud, “Wait! Wait!” But Dṛṣṭadyumna’s reply was swift: three shafts with golden wings and deadly tips pierced Drumasena’s breast, and with a fourth, broad-headed and fierce, he cut off the prince’s head, which fell earthward, the teeth biting the lower lip in rage—a ripe palm fruit torn by the storm.
The Panchāla prince, whirling his bow like flame, cut off Karṇa’s bow as well. The son of Rādha roared in fury like a wounded lion. He seized another bow and loosed arrows in a thousand streams, covering Dṛṣṭadyumna in a cloud of death. Then the six foremost warriors of thy army—Droṇa, Karṇa, Aśvatthāman, Duryodhana, Duḥśāsana, and Śalya—closed round him like wolves about a stag. The watchers said among themselves, “The son of Pṛṣata is already in the jaws of Death.”
Meanwhile, Sātyaki, lion of the Vṛṣṇis, his chariot wheels burning with speed, broke through the gloom and came to aid his ally. He rained arrows as he came, each flashing like a serpent’s tongue in the dark. Karṇa, seeing him, struck with ten keen shafts; Sātyaki replied in kind, his voice rising above the din: “Do not flee, O Karṇa! Stand and fight!”
Then flamed the duel of the two lions—
Karṇa the Sūta’s son and Yuyudhāna the bold—
fierce as that of Vāli and Indra in the days of old.
Their bows sang like twin tempests,
their arrows crossed in midair like strokes of lightning.
Karna’s hands moved faster than sight; his shafts tore the night in whistling chains. Sātyaki’s bow flashed in answer, his car sounding like a thundercloud. The sky was red with the sparks of clashing weapons. For a moment, they seemed equals—two fires feeding upon each other.
Then thy son Duryodhana, calling to Karṇa, led his warriors in to hem Sātyaki round. From every side came shafts that darkened the lamps of heaven. But the Vrishni hero, fearless and swift, met them all with his arrows, and striking Vṛṣasena, Karṇa’s son, he sent an arrow through his chest. The youth fell upon his car, his bow slipping from his hand like a broken branch.
Seeing his son fall, Karṇa’s heart blazed with grief. His wrath became a living flame, and he struck Sātyaki with such force that sparks seemed to leap from the air itself. Sātyaki reeled but rose again, piercing both father and fallen son with swift, unerring shafts that cut their bows and mail to shreds. Karṇa and Vṛṣasena seized fresh bows and fought on, their arrows hissing like snakes of fire, while the twang of the Gāṇḍīva rose above all other sounds.
Then, from the darkness afar, came the roar of Arjuna’s car. The sound of the Gāṇḍīva spread like thunder over the field, and the ground trembled with the beat of his horses’ hooves.
Karna, hearing that sound, said unto Duryodhana, “Lo, the son of Pṛthā is upon us! The thunder of his bow shakes the night; our armies are breaking before him like waves before the wind. He comes—our men flee like leaves in a storm. If we can slay Sātyaki and Dṛṣṭadyumna now, then victory may yet be ours.”
Then Duryodhana, filled with desperate fire, turned to Śakuni and said:
“Go forth, O uncle, with ten thousand elephants,
and ten thousand chariots beside!
Duḥśāsana, Durviṣaha, Suvāhu, and Duṣpradharṣaṇa
will follow thee with many footmen.
Slay the sons of Kuntī and the dark Keśava—
my hope rests on thee,
as the gods once rested on Indra!”
So ordered, Śakuni of Gandhāra advanced, surrounded by his sons and a sea of men, to consume the sons of Pāṇḍu. And behind him came Karṇa once more, burning for the blood of Sātyaki. Around Dṛṣṭadyumna, Droṇa himself pressed forward again, and the field flamed anew—men fighting men in the thickest dark, where only fire and death gave light.
Sañjaya said:
Then all the kings of thy army, mighty and proud, unable to brook the feats of Yuyudhāna, rushed together against his chariot. In cars decked with gold and gems, surrounded by elephants and horsemen, they hemmed in the Sātvata hero on all sides, their war-cries rising like thunder from storm-tossed clouds. They showered arrows thick as rain, seeking to crush the grandson of Sini.
But Sātyaki, that lion among warriors, lifted his mighty bow and loosed his shafts in flashing streams. His arrows flew like falcons in flight, cleaving through helms and mail. Many warriors fell headless, their severed trunks sinking amidst elephants whose tusks gleamed crimson with blood. The severed arms of heroes, bright with golden bracelets, fell like writhing serpents to the ground. The night was torn by the sound of dying men and trumpeting beasts, and the field shone white with broken umbrellas and yak-tails, like the firmament studded with stars.
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Loud rose the wails of men,
shrill as spirits damned in hell.
The ground shook beneath their cries,
and the darkness deepened with dread.
Hearing that dreadful uproar, Duryodhana’s heart quaked within him. Turning to his charioteer, he said again and again, “Urge the steeds—toward that sound! The slaughter thunders where Sātyaki fights.” Then the Kuru prince, firm of bow and fierce of will, came forth like a tempest to meet the Madhu hero.
Sātyaki, with hands that never trembled, struck Duryodhana with twelve blood-drinking shafts that drank the life-breath from the air. The Kuru king, stung and enraged, answered with ten arrows that glittered like lightning. Around them, the Pāñcālas fought with thy army, and the clash of men and steeds became like the cracking of worlds.
The grandson of Sini, blazing with wrath, pierced Duryodhana with eighty shafts, then slew his steeds and his driver, leaving the king stranded on his broken chariot. The Kuru monarch, standing firm though unhorsed, sent a flight of arrows like serpents toward Sātyaki’s car, but the Vrishni hero, with a sweep of his bow, cut off all fifty shafts in the air and struck down Duryodhana’s weapon itself. His great bow fell, its string severed at the handle, and Duryodhana, deprived of both car and weapon, mounted swiftly upon the shining chariot of Kṛtavarman. Beholding him driven away, Sātyaki pressed on like Yama himself, routing the Kuru host in the night’s dark hour.
Meanwhile, O King, Śakuni of Gandhāra surrounded Arjuna on every side with countless chariots, elephants, and horsemen. Many warriors hurled celestial weapons at Pārtha, choosing death before retreat. But Arjuna, inflamed with wrath, stood unshaken amid the storm, his Gāṇḍīva singing its deadly hymn. His arrows, swift as the wind, checked their advance and turned back the tide.
Śakuni, his eyes red with fury, pierced the son of Indra with twenty shafts and then a hundred more. The shafts rattled upon Arjuna’s mail like rain upon mountain stone. But Pārtha only smiled, and in one swift moment pierced Śakuni with twenty arrows and every one of his champions with three apiece. The Kuru host reeled as he loosed shaft after shaft, each bright with the fire of Rudra’s wrath.
The earth soon lay strewn with bodies and weapons, glittering like a field of flowers.
The ground was filled with severed heads—
crowned and jeweled, noble and proud—
lips curled in defiance, eyes wide in death,
as if the stars themselves had fallen to earth.
Śakuni’s army broke like a wave against rock. Arjuna’s chariot blazed across the darkness, and men fled before it as deer before flame. The son of Suvala, pierced and reeling, was struck again, and his son Ulūka, too, felt the arrow of Arjuna pierce his breast. With a thunderous roar that shook the sky, Pārtha cut off Śakuni’s bow, slew his four steeds, and left him standing weaponless. Yet Śakuni, leaping down, climbed upon Ulūka’s chariot, and father and son together rained arrows upon the son of Pāṇḍu. Arjuna’s shafts met them midair, breaking their assault like wind scattering clouds. The Gandhāra host, shattered and leaderless, fled into the night, trampling its own dead as it fled.
Then the conchs of Keśava and Arjuna sounded together, loud and deep, echoing across the field like the voice of creation itself.
Elsewhere, Dṛṣṭadyumna pierced Droṇa with three arrows and, with a keen shaft, severed the bowstring of that aged warrior. Droṇa dropped the bow and took up another, strong and well-tempered, and pierced the Panchāla prince and his driver each with five shafts. But Dṛṣṭadyumna, mighty in battle, drove back Droṇa’s advance, scattering the Kaurava host like Indra scattering the Asuras.
From that slaughtered army there arose a river of blood, red and deep, bearing men and steeds and elephants upon its current. It flowed between the armies like the dread Vaitaraṇī that leads the souls of the dead to Yama’s abode. The Panchāla prince, blazing amid the carnage like the sun amidst thunderclouds, pressed on, and the Kaurava ranks wavered before him.
The river of death flowed swift and wide,
its banks of corpses piled high as hills.
The foam of its waves was white with bones,
and the cries of men were its wind.
Then Dṛṣṭadyumna and Śikhaṇḍin blew their conchs, and the sound joined that of the Pāṇḍavas. Nakula and Sahadeva, and Bhīma the mighty, too, blew their conchs, shaking the hearts of men. At that sound, the kings of thy side—great in power and pride—fell back in fear, even while the sight of Droṇa, Karṇa, and thy valiant son filled them with despair and wonder.
Sañjaya said:
Beholding his own army routed and slaughtered by the heroes of the Pāṇḍavas, thy son, Duryodhana—well-versed in words and fierce in wrath—rushed toward Karṇa and Droṇa. Standing before those two lions among men, he spoke in burning anger, his voice trembling like a storm at sea.
“Ye two have kindled this war, enraged at the fall of Jayadratha by the hand of Savyasācin. Yet now ye behold, unmoved, my host perishing beneath the arrows of the sons of Pāṇḍu. Both of you are mighty enough to vanquish their army, and yet ye stand indifferent while the Kuru legions crumble.
If it is your wish to abandon me now, then ye should have told me before—‘We will not fight.’ But I heard from your own lips these words: ‘We shall destroy the sons of Pāṇḍu in battle.’ On that assurance I consented to this war. Had I known otherwise, never would I have provoked the sons of Kuntī, those lions among men!
If indeed I deserve not to be forsaken, O heroes of unfailing might, then fight now with the measure of your true prowess. Let the world witness your valour!”
Pierced by his words like a goad through the hide of an elephant, the two masters of warfare, Droṇa and Karṇa, were stung with pride. Like serpents roused by fire, they once more rushed into battle.
The two foremost of bowmen in the world, their chariots shining with gold, charged against the advancing hosts of the Pāṇḍavas led by Sātyaki and the sons of Pr̥ṣata. The Pāṇḍavas too, uniting together, came roaring like the ocean, their banners streaming in the wind.
Droṇa, master of all weapons, his anger blazing like the midday sun, pierced Sātyaki, that bull among the Vṛṣṇis, with ten sharp arrows. Karṇa struck him with ten more, thy son with seven, Vṛṣasena with ten, and Suvala’s son with seven. Around the Sātvata hero stood an unyielding wall of Kaurava chariots, enclosing him like a fortress of steel.
Beholding Droṇa mowing down the ranks of the Pāṇḍavas, the Somakas surrounded him from every side and rained arrows thick as monsoon rain. But Droṇa shone amid the storm, slaying men by the hundreds, his shafts blazing through the dark like tongues of lightning.
The preceptor’s bow sang like the wind,
his arrows fell like fire from the sky;
the sons of Drupada fled in despair,
crying each to each in terror and loss.
Fathers left their sons, sons abandoned their sires, brothers and friends fled apart through the night. Some, bereft of reason, ran straight toward Droṇa himself and fell upon his arrows. Many valiant warriors of the Pāṇḍava host were thus sent to the other world.
Afflicted and broken by that irresistible hero, the army of Yudhiṣṭhira fled through the darkness, throwing down their torches, their cries echoing across the field. The world was swallowed by gloom; only the lamps of the Kauravas burned like stars in the night, marking the path of the fleeing. Droṇa and Karṇa pursued them relentlessly, their arrows streaking through the dark like meteors across the sky.
Beholding the Pāñcālas routed and slain, Keśava, filled with sorrow, turned to Arjuna and spoke in grave urgency.
“Dhr̥ṣṭadyumna and Sātyaki, with the Pāñcālas beside them,
have gone forth against Droṇa and Karṇa.
See, our host is broken—
its warriors scattered like leaves before the wind.
Though we call them back, they rally not.
Come, O son of Kuntī—let us stand before those two lions.
Lift now thy bow, and follow me.”
Then, seeing Bhīma advancing through the gloom, Janārdana smiled and said again to gladden Arjuna’s heart:
“Behold, yonder comes Vṛkodara,
delighting in battle,
surrounded by the Somakas and Pāṇḍavas.
With him at thy side, O Pārtha,
stand firm and strike for the safety of thy host.”
Thus encouraged by Mādhava’s words, those two mighty ones—the son of Pāṇḍu and he of the Yadus—advanced together toward Droṇa and Karṇa, taking their place at the head of the battle.
Then the vast host of Yudhiṣṭhira, though shattered, turned once more toward the fight. Like two oceans swelling under the moon, the armies clashed again in the dead of night. The warriors of thy side, casting aside their blazing lamps, fought wildly in the dark, guided only by the names they cried aloud.
“Here am I!” shouted kings to one another,
their voices mingling like a hundred rivers.
Swords clashed, chariots crashed,
elephants bellowed in the blackness of war.
Suddenly, a momentary stillness spread across the field—the hush before a storm. Then once more the uproar rose, louder than before, the tumult of anger, fear, and death.
Wherever lamps still burned, warriors rushed toward them like moths drawn to fire. And as Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas fought, locked in their struggle amid dust and darkness, the night itself thickened, as though the very heavens had closed their eyes to the slaughter below.